Movie Night
by Drea Jackman
Summary: It’s Friday; it’s movie night, there’s popcorn and there’s beer. More importantly there are cushions, pillows, and two X5s... Max & Alec. (Pure Fluff!)


TITLE: Movie Night  
  
WRITTEN BY: Drea Jackman  
  
EMAIL: DreaJackman@hotmail.com  
  
WEBSITE: Blue Genes - http://DreaJackman.cjb.net/ Blog @ http://www.xanga.com/home.asp?user=DreaJackman  
  
RATING: G  
  
SUMMARY: It's Friday; it's movie night, there's popcorn and there's beer. More importantly there are cushions, pillows, and two X5s... Max & Alec.  
  
DISCLAIMER: All Dark Angel characters belong to James Cameron and Charles Eglee (Cameron Eglee Productions) and Dark Angel itself belongs to FOX...it's just not fair is it? *Sob*  
  
ARCHIVE: If I've said yes before I'll say it again, otherwise email me 'n' ask permission.  
  
FEEDBACK: Don't make me beg, please? ...D'OH!  
  
A/N: Isn't it always true that the second you actually start putting effort into a new project, something else distracts you altogether? I was happily working away on starting a nice Daniel-centric SG-1 fic when this lil piece of M/A fluff just took over. Suppose it's all down to the fact that with a face like Alec's ...can we really say 'No'?  
  
Movie Night  
  
It was a Friday night like another other in Seattle. Mostly that meant a dreary downpour falling from the heavens onto the darkened city streets, but this week in particular, it was movie night. Since managing to strike up what could actually pass for a friendship, Max and Alec had begun to enjoy sharing each others company.  
  
"Remind me again why a pair of twenty year olds are watching this movie?"  
  
Max lay comfortably spread out on Alec's two-seater couch with her legs propped up over the arm. She lay on her back, head turned to her left side as necessary to view the television.  
  
"Sketchy said it would've been a classic if the Pulse had never happened."  
  
Alec was sprawled out in a similar fashion to Max. The three-seater was a more comfy place for him to relax on given his six foot stature. The couch he was on was almost at right angles to where Max lay side on to the TV.  
  
"We're going on Sketchy's definition of a classic?" she asked.  
  
Alec didn't answer. His attention was well and truly glued to the bright colours and moving pictures that poured from the screen. As he did so, he carelessly grabbed a handful of popcorn, home-popped to complete the movie- night experience of course, and stuffed it into his mouth.  
  
Max suppressed a smile when she looked over at his apparently 'extremely comfy' position and rolled her eyes.  
  
"Whatever, Alec, but from what I've seen, classics don't generally bare names like Shrek."  
  
For some strange reason, despite the pre-Pulse wonders of computer animation, the movie wasn't really holding Max's attention. She felt fidgety and unsettled. But, since this week had been Alec's choice, she just decided to suffer in silence. For a while anyway.  
  
With a muffled sigh, Max turned back to the screen and watched as some old woman tried to sell out her talking donkey.  
  
'You may have seen a horsefly, maybe even a super-fly, but I bet you ain't never seen ...a donkey fly!' the TV blared.  
  
As inevitably things went wrong and the poor creature crashed to the ground in a rather comedic fashion, Max jumped suddenly at an unexpected sound. An uncontrolled fit of giggles and laughter had escaped Alec and for brief seconds Max watched with a smile on her face.  
  
Alec didn't look round at her. His attention was still squarely focused on the screen across from them. The smile was still present on both their faces in the moments that followed. Max watched Alec give the movie his entire focus. Easily the kind a child would have given Saturday-morning cartoons. It was surprisingly cute and she couldn't take her eyes off him.  
  
By escaping at nine years old, Max had been given a little time to be a kid even if it went against all the training she'd ever had. Alec had pretty much 'escaped' at twenty. He'd never been given the time to appreciate what some would call childish things. Regardless, Max had to admit that one of the things she loved about him was his sense of fun. Alec knew exactly how to have a good time.  
  
After watching him for a bit, Max took a long drink from her beer bottle and lay back down. Turning back to the set, she relaxed into the many cushions Alec had adorned his soft furnishings with carefully.  
  
"Now why am I getting the strangest feeling about this?" Max asked and put all the innocent sarcasm she could muster into the words.  
  
"Alec leaned back and his eyes eventually left the screen to look back at her. Max tried not to laugh at the comical appearance of Alec lying, head almost tilted all the way to being upside down.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
'Will you just SHUT UP!' the voice of the ogre, Shrek, echoed around the room.  
  
"That."  
  
"What?" Alec asked, frowning.  
  
"Oh nothing, just that the similarities between Donkey and certain transgenics I know is kinda freaky," Max answered innocently.  
  
"Yeah," Alec agreed as he turned back to the TV. Shovelling in some more popcorn he added, "I'm sure Josh'd really appreciate your uncanny ability to draw parallels."  
  
"I was talking about a certain X5 that never shut up and that wouldn't get lost no matter how many times he was asked to," Max clarified.  
  
"Oh, that," Alec sighed. "I just knew how much you loved having me around."  
  
A few seconds passed in silence as Alec continued to watch the scene playing out in peace. His enjoyment was suddenly disturbed by a hard object impacting his head with a soft thump. Instinctively he grabbed it and discovered it was one of the cushions from Max's two-seater. Alec's eyes narrowed, the movie instantly forgotten. The two-seater ...enemy territory.  
  
Max was watching Alec expectantly when all of a sudden, his movements blurred before her. He suddenly tossed her cushion straight back at her and much too quickly for her to react to. As the cushion landed with a solid 'thump' on her stomach, Max flinched and prepared to retaliate.  
  
"Hey, don't think you're gonna get away with that!"  
  
Alec leaned his head back till he was hanging off the couch. Upside down features greeted hers with a mischievous smirk she knew all too well.  
  
"Thought didn't even enter my head."  
  
On cue, both leapt up from where they'd been lying watching the movie and grabbed the most hefty cushions they could each find. Max stood behind the two-seater between it and the kitchen counter a few feet behind and Alec stood on the other side of his three-seater. The pair began to circle the living room space, cushions held menacingly at the ready.  
  
"Comparing me to some computer-generated, motor-mouthed, can't-take-a-hint, Donkey?!"  
  
Alec swung out at Max and she dodged, stopping to retaliate verbally before she did physically.  
  
"Totally!"  
  
Max's strike connected with his upper arm.  
  
"Ow!"  
  
"Baby!"  
  
The pair exchanged blow after blow. Max's bare feet made a steady stance on the floor while Alec's cotton-socked feet slipped across the wood surface and made his stance falter. Max landed hit after hit to Alec's upper body. He tried to back away to get a better swing at her, but she was right there in front of him every step of the way.  
  
"Back off!" he whined and grimaced as another sweep of her pillow threw his hair well and truly into disarray.  
  
"So you can get a better shot?"  
  
"Well, " he paused and stood straight for a second. "Yeah."  
  
Max didn't reply, although the moment she took to take in his dishevelled appearance made her soften for a second.  
  
Alec felt the soft whack across his face, but didn't flinch. Max's attack was stalled after that and in response to her attack, he only blinked. Then it snapped. That little shred of control inside just gave way and something else kicked in. He launched blow after blow at Max, feeling each connect as hers hit him with equal force. When X5s played rough, they really played rough.  
  
Max attempted to dodge Alec's onslaught of now forceful blows without much success. It led her to question whether or not he'd been really trying before. One by one, each hit connected and Max could only swing her almost pillow in pointless attack as she retreated around the sofa.  
  
"Stand down soldier!" Max yelled amidst her desperate gasps for air."  
  
"Not likely," Alec fired back and chased her around the kitchen counter."  
  
Max tossed the cushion she'd been using across to the other side of the kitchen where Alec succeeded in batting it out of his way.  
  
"Run, run little girl," he taunted and tossed his own weapon aside.  
  
Max did exactly that. Her path blocked by the other X5 headed straight for her, she launched herself over the kitchen counter. When she landed softly on the other side, she took a few seconds to look behind her but Alec wasn't where she thought he'd be.  
  
"Alec?"  
  
If it hadn't been for Max's Manticore-given senses, she might have missed the swift launch from behind the frame making up the doorway from kitchen- to-hall-to-living-room. Rounding it quickly, Alec blurred across the living room, around both sofas and stopped beside her.  
  
"Max?" he asked, voice mimicking her question.  
  
Before Max could react, Alec had swept her clean off her feet and had her in a fireman's lift. She immediately began to squeal and struggle against him, but he wasn't for letting go.  
  
"Alec!" she squealed.  
  
"What?" he whined back mirroring her tone.  
  
"Put me down!"  
  
Alec appeared to pause for thought a moment longer. With his trademark smirk obscured from her direct line of sight, he shrugged knowing full well that his shoulder had just nudged her in the stomach.  
  
"Y'know, I don't think I'm gonna do that right now?"  
  
With one arm wrapped securely around Max's legs, Alec took a few steps around the living room. Every step was made with deliberate bounce designed to further her annoyance.  
  
"Alec," she growled in warning.  
  
The fact that she was hanging upside down was not the only thing Max was keenly aware of. She was also aware that not only was she in Alec's arms, pressed to Alec's upper body, both chest and back and holding Alec's sides to keep from falling; she was also faced in direct line with Alec's combat- clad behind. Being female, she let herself enjoy the view a moment longer before finding it in her to protest, albeit feebly.  
  
"C'mon Alec, put me down?"  
  
"Say you're sorry first." His tone feined hurt.  
  
"No way!"  
  
"Fine."  
  
"Fine!"  
  
Max propped her head up on one hand and dug her elbow into Alec's back to do so. Being stubborn was something common to both of them. So much so that she wondered if it had been a standard genetic trait preferred by Manticore.  
  
Alec made his way around the apartment taking his time as he went. Entering the kitchen, he stopped by the fridge and took out a beer. Pausing a second, he adjusted Max's weight on his shoulder and opened up the can with one hand. As he fought to enjoy a cool drink from it, Max struggled against him again.  
  
"Stop that," he said with annoyance and carried her back in the direction of the living-room.  
  
"Make me," she replied defiantly.  
  
"Right," Alec said and sat his beer down on the table between the two sofas in the living-room. "That's it!"  
  
Before Max even knew what was going on, she found herself hurtling toward the three-seater couch. As she landed with a soft thump, her first instinct was to escape. Unfortunately, the instinct lay buried just as deeply within her attacker who realised her intentions almost as quickly as she had. Within mere seconds, Max found herself trapped. Strong hands gripped both her arms and pinned them in by her sides.  
  
"This is it?" she asked unimpressed and helpless to do anything but stare back up at him.  
  
"This is what?" Alec asked, kneeling beside the sofa while still managing to keep a secure hold on her.  
  
"This is your 'that's it'!" she quoted directly.  
  
"Not entirely."  
  
"Then wha..."  
  
Max's cheeky response was cut short by an outburst of giggling and laughter. It wasn't long before Alec' had joined in her hilarity as his hands worked across her body, tickling her mercilessly.  
  
"Alec, stop!"  
  
"Make me!" he replied, again mirroring her previous words and turning them back on her.  
  
Unexpectedly, Max did just that. In that moment, Alec found himself flying backward where he landed squarely on his ass in the centre of the room. Max looked at him with her 'You asked for it' face and sat up. Alec's eyes flew around the room looking for the quickest exit then back to her again as he gauged his chances.  
  
Almost blurring in his haste, Alec leapt to his feet and tore out of the living-room heading for the closest place offering refuge. He'd just made it into the doorway of his bedroom when Max caught him in what could only be described as an expert tackle. Her arms locked tightly around his waist and she used both their acceleration and momentum to carry them the rest of the way.  
  
The pair flew at the well spread double bed. When Alec made the first contact, it was with a heavy 'Oomph!' as Max landed on top of him. For a while they were too breathless to maintain any kind of verbal attack. Instead their gasps, giggles and laughter filled the air. Their play went turnabout for a while. Originally, Alec flipped Max to gain a better vantage point, then Max returned the favour and so the game continued.  
  
Although play was something an X5 was never taught, it could never be said that they didn't have the capacity for it. In the time they'd spent fighting and arguing Before, there had always been the underlying understanding that it was all in fun. At least, ever since the pair had aired a few home truths.  
  
"Hah! Alec gasped in victory.  
  
Max struggled against him, but he had her pinned securely beneath him. His weight was leaning down on her, legs straddling her thighs, knees by either side of hers causing his full body weight to press down on her. He gripped both her forearms just above the wrist, holding each firmly either side of her head.  
  
"Admit it!" he demanded.  
  
"Admit what?!"  
  
"That I rule!"  
  
Alec smiled mischievously and Max rolled her eyes.  
  
"Not gonna happen."  
  
"C'mon, Maxie, admit it. I'm the best!"  
  
"No way," she said smiling a little more.  
  
"I beat you."  
  
"Since when?" Max eyed him skeptically and tugged on her arms, but he still wasn't letting up.  
  
"Since," Alec paused to readjust his grip on her arms and pushed them down into the soft mattress. "I got the top!"  
  
"You did?" Max's tone was one of complete innocence.  
  
Alec looked confused for all of two seconds before he realised what she had in store. Unfortunately for him it was a realisation come far too late as he felt the sudden burst of energy burst from beneath him. Before he knew what had hit him, he found himself being flipped and their positions being reversed. He opened his eyes to find Max grinning down at him.  
  
With a muffled sigh, Alec didn't even wait for Max to grow comfortable in her new position. He slipped her grasp with practiced ease. The kind that could only come from their common, childhood teachings. The pair laughed and giggled some more as they continued to roll around the bed, each wrestling with the other until finally one emerged the victor and both stopped to catch their breath.  
  
Alec had done it again. He had pinned Max exactly as before and this time she showed no signs of struggle. Lucky for Alec since he didn't find himself offering much of a secure pin in the first place. The pair were still giggling and breathing heavily. Max looked up at Alec and saw him with an expression she couldn't remember seeing there before. His eyes were closed as he laughed whole-heartedly with her. It was one of the most amazing sights she'd ever seen, especially for one so simple.  
  
Before long, the hilarity had died down and both Max and Alec managed to stop laughing long enough to catch their breath. A growing silence filled the air around them and they both felt like the air around them was buzzing. Humming and vibrating between them as they lay there together and unmoving, it conveyed hidden thoughts and feelings from one to the other.  
  
Alec's lips closed on a smile as he drew a breath in deeply through his nose and gazed down at the woman beneath him. Max did the same, inhaling slowly and returning his gaze as they both seemed content to stare at the other for brief moments.  
  
Without any warning or coherent thought in his head, Alec lowered himself toward Max. His lips crossed hers slowly in a tentative kiss. Max was more surprised by the nature of his kiss rather than the act itself. She'd never expected Alec to be so gentle or so reverent. His softness warmed her.  
  
When Max opened her eyes, it was to Alec's forlorn expression. The fun of five minutes previous was all but gone as he started back at her, but the same sparkle still twinkled in his eyes. It occurred to her that his gentleness had been his way of asking her permission and testing her acceptance of him. Alec never ceased to surprise her.  
  
Alec couldn't do anything else. He couldn't move at all. Actually, he didn't want to, but all he could manage was to stay there and stare back down at her. Stare and wonder if he had managed to screw-up again and wreck their friendship.  
  
"I'm sorry," he said, the half-truth looping a lance around his heart and squeezing it painfully tight.  
  
He was not in the least bit sorry for having blindly taken the chance. The only thing he could truly apologise for was the fact that he might have just destroyed their friendship. That above everything else, even his relationship with Joshua, meant more because with Josh he had a best friend. With Max there was always so much more to it.  
  
Max didn't reply right away. It had taken her right up until that moment to decide. As she thought over her course of action, she couldn't stop the slight smile from tugging at her lips. Too bad Alec missed it completely as his field of vision was blocked completely by the pillow that caught him square in the face.  
  
Alec wasn't entirely sure how she'd done it, but Max had managed to shirk free of his grasp, hit him in the face with one of the pillows from his own bed and flip them over yet again so that she sat comfortably on top. Her legs straddled his hips as she pinned his arms as he had done with her.  
  
"So you should be," she said as her hair fell about her face and tickled at Alec's cheeks.  
  
He ignored it and simply stared up at her. His features were a torn mixture of hurt, confusion and wonder.  
  
"When you ask a girl's permission," she began and shook her hair back over her shoulders and let it fall to one side out of the way. She wiggled around a little bit and adjusted her position so that she could rest herself on him comfortably. "You're supposed to wait for her final answer."  
  
With that Max leaned in the rest of the way and closed the distance between their lips. Alec's mind reeled at the turn their play had taken, but he wasn't sorry for it. Neither was Max. As she drew back, he opened his eyes and looked up at her with a breathless new confidence.  
  
"Your final answer?" he asked trying to joke, but his face remained deadly serious as if he'd just laid his heart out on the line and was awaiting it's final judgement. Was he worthy of her? Would he ever be? Did she want him? His heart pounded in his ears as he awaited her response.  
  
Max took a moment to read the truth evident in his eyes. She couldn't remember ever seeing that side of Alec before, but somehow she realised she'd never doubted it's existence. The softer, gentler side that always betrayed their humanity, no matter how hard they tried to hide it. There was nothing playful or sarcastic about their exchange, nothing at all.  
  
She smiled and nudged her hips against his causing them both to bounce slightly on the mattress beneath. She tightened her grip on his forearms as she leaned down towards him again and whispered against his lips.  
  
"What do you think?"  
  
Before Alec could reply, Max's lips were on his once more. As she kissed him, she felt his hands begin to flex as the muscles under her grip pulled and released in turn. Instinctively, she released them and brought her hands down to his chest and shoulders. Alec returned her kiss and slowly wrapped his arms around her, pulling her in close to him.  
  
As the pair cuddled up together on Alec's bed and kissed the minutes away, they continued their gentle exploration of each other. Max was still surprised by Alec's reverence and he was equally as shocked by her willingness, and eagerness, to share the tentative act with him.  
  
In the surrounding silence, all that could be heard in the darkness of the room was Alec's faint, but playful whisper against Max's lips.  
  
"Good answer."  
  
The End 


End file.
